Monday, March 26, 2012

I just about had a heart attack when I tried to get on my blog today. It said that it didn't exist! What! I don't exist? I'm confused? Well, whatever happened........I'm back!!!! Whew!

Anyway, back to the real world. I've been doing really good with my diet and have taken a walk every day except Sunday. ( Come on! I need a break sometime!lol) I feel better already! When I found out I had high cholesterol, the nurse asked if I wanted her to send me a recommended diet. Sure! Why not? Well, I got it in the mail two days ago and I just about sent it back to them. The foods that they recommended me to eat were things like, white bread, bagels, margarine and store bought pancakes. Then it said that I should avoid foods like nuts and avocados and beef. What! Seriously?! Who writes these things? If that is what people are suppose to be eating and avoiding, no wonder this nation is having a health problem. They are telling us to eat all of the wrong things! Are the heart surgeons and nutritionist in on this together? Are they telling us to eat this stuff so that they will never be out of a job? Because, if we all were eating the good stuff,the stuff they tell us not to eat, we wouldn't need them as much. See? Conspiracy. lol

Well, we are on baby watch around here. We will be having little doelings and bucklings running around here in a few days. YEA!!!!! I can't wait! Although, I'm really kind of scared. I know nothing about kidding. Sure, I can read all of the books, but if you haven't done it in real life, it's a whole other story. I hope everything goes alright.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

I want to say right off the bat, don't EVER worry about this becoming a "health" blog. It's what's really going on in my life right now so I'm blogging about it. lol. Plus, who wants a chubby homesteader telling you how to get healthy? NOT ME! I will post about my progress periodically, just so you'll know how things are going. You guys have been great! Thanks for your support and words of wisdom. (and YES Sista, I would like your recipe for granola!!!!! :) )

To start off the day, I did go for a walk. I walked to our neighbor's property. (No, not the property across the road. Give me some credit. lol) Out here that is a little bit farther than most neighbors. So, for me, it was a nice morning walk. I got a small sweat going on. Of course that could have come with dodging Lily who kept walking in front of me. She is going along just well and find by my side, when all of a sudden, "Squirrel!" She darts out in front of me, almost taking my legs out from under me. Gotta love them pups.

Anyway, as I was walking a DID notice that one of our cows is staying off to herself a bit. That probably means that she will be calving soon. That's good, we only have one little baby out there right now and she needs a playmate.

Another thing I found as I was walking is the herb Yarrow. I've been looking for this root along the roadways for a couple years now. I found some last year across the road, but when I went to get it, someone had already dug it up! Well, a guess someone else knows of it's medicinal values. This yarrow, my friend, is on MY property. And, as soon as I can get a container ready to put it in, IT'S MINE! ALL MINE!!!!(insert evil laugh here)

I'm new at this herbal stuff, but I'm willing to learn. I heard yarrow is used for a lot of things. When I know more and am more confident about posting about it, I will. That's my new "adventure" right now. Learning about herbs and their purposes. I met a midwife this past weekend. She was soooo interesting. I've been looking for someone like her for sometime now. She is the(in my eyes) the ultimate homesteader. She REALLY lives off of her land. She has about 250 acres that they are building a house on. And when I say they, I mean her and her husband and their 7 kids. Oh, and one on the way. Ya, she has her own work force. lol. Anyway, this lady produces at least 90 percent of the stuff that they eat. She even grows the grains for her breads and things. Yes, she's the real thing. And to make it even nicer, she only lives a short trip down the road from me. Yippy!!!!!! Anyways, she is going to be teaching me all kinds of things about herbs and natural medican. I'm really looking forward to it. Now I can have someone actually SHOW me how to use the herbs and not just read about how to do to.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Did ya ever just NOT have anything to say? Believe it or not, I really don't. It's just the same ole,same ole around here. So just to keep up with my blogging, I just thought I would get on here and start typing .(Please bare with me.)

I guess I could tell you about how we got a calf butchered. But to make it a better story, I need to take pictures of the new HUGE freezer that we had to buy to put it in. Then when we went to pick up the 400+ lbs of all grass fed, home raised beef, we ended up buying a locally raised hog. It came up to over 200lbs. So to put it lightly, we wont be needing to buy any meat anytime soon. lol.

You know, it makes you feel good to know that the food that you are eating comes from your hard work.(Or your neighbors.) I want to try to eat more local foods. Well, to be exact, I want to eat more of my OWN raised food. I think that is important.

As I was typing this, I got a phone call from my dr. I have to go in every year to get a refill on my blood pressure meds. Anyway, they told me that my cholesterol was up and that I needed to go on a low cholesterol diet. Have they seen my freezer?! All of that meat is NOT going to go to waste. I guess I'll just cut back on my lumberjack sized portions. I kind of have been going over board on those. (Well, what do you expect? We haven't had this good of meat in a long time?LOL) I'll eat more veggies, (which shouldn't be hard. I love them.) and get more exercise.(Ok, I hate exercising!) I knew that I was going to have to start eating and exercising more. My size 103245433 pants were telling me this. But, until something like this hits you in the face, you don't really think about it. Time to get real people. I'll keep you all up to date.

I guess I had more to say than what I realized. I should do this more often. hehehe

Saturday, March 17, 2012

I like when this time of year comes around. It's warm enough to put clothes out on the line. I like the feel of the clothes whipped by the wind. I like the whites that the sun bleaches even whiter. I like the smell of the fresh...........dog poo? That's right, my "beloved" dogs have taken it on themselves to poop under my clothes line. NOT GOOD!!!!!! So before I could hang my clothes on the line, I had to clean ALL the dog poo out from under it. And believe me, there was a bunch! After cleaning it, then I had to wait a few days for the smell to go away. Luck was with me and it rained that night. So today, I get to hang my clothes out on the clothes line. (That is unless they have presented me with another pile. Grrrrr!)

Speaking of dogs, after my dad found out what kind of dogs I had, he told me a story about one year when he went turkey hunting. My dad is a great hunter. He can hunt down, track down, or call in, any kind of creatures. I think he's part blood hound. He said he was sitting next to a tree calling in some turkeys that he heard gobbling. He would hear them for a bit and then they just stopped. Then he heard something russel in the leaves. He said it sounded like it was coming closer. Maybe it was the turkeys?

Well, as the sound kept getting closer he peered into the woods hoping to see some spread feathers and a blue head of a turkey. No, what did he see? Two Great Pyrenees dogs and a black dog of unknown breed. They were getting closer to him. Almost stalking him. Now Great Pyrenees can sometimes be aggressive. Especially if they think their "flock" is in danger. The first GP and the black dog spotted him and barked at him, but took off into the woods. The second stoped and stared. Head lowered, just staring. He started to stalk closer and closer. Not breaking eye contact. Dad thought, " Great, I'm gonna have to kill this thing or it's gonna kill me first."

It stalked closer and closer. Dad, not really wanting to kill it, picked up a stick. The dog kept coming slowly closer and closer, head lowered, not taking his eyes off of Dad. Dad threw the stick hoping to scare the dog.

The dog pricked up it's head, bounded toward the stick, picked it up in his mouth, and brought it back to Dad wiggling his tail like he had done the greatest thing in the world. Dad just petted the dog and decided that his hunting was done for the day.

Friday, March 16, 2012

He also is really hard to take a picture of. lol. Oh, see that little face down there in the corner?

Well, her name is Lily. She is George's new best friend.

They REALLY like each other.

They like each other so much, that once Lily went down to the pond to get her a drink of water. As she was leaning over, she fell in. George grabbed her by her tail and drug her out of the water. He goes everywhere that she goes. He's her protector.

I have so many things to blog about. It's just trying to find the time to do it now. I'm going to try though to get you guys up to date. Next time. lol

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

When I moved out here on the farm with Hubby, there was NO one around. I mean, the closest neighbor was half a mile away, more than a mile the other way. No one in front, no one in back. It was heaven. Now? Well, let's just say we have neighbors. An older couple moved in right next door. Now, they aren't bad. They pretty well stay to themselves. Every once in a while, they will call and ask if we got something of theirs in the mail. But, that's about it. What's bad is all of their adult kids that they had to bring with them. Everyone of them moved in a trailer onto "Daddy's" land. Now don't get me wrong, trailers aren't bad. It's just I really didn't want the place to look like a trailer park.

Anyway, this morning I heard one of the cows bawling. They don't usually do this unless something is really bothering them. One of the cows had just had a baby 2 nights ago, so I was really wondering what was going on. I went to look and seen the horses running all over the place. Now, it was cool and crisp outside, so I thought maybe they were just feeling good and running around. Then I watched as they started running the momma cow and her new baby. What? Our horses don't do that. I got to looking at them again. One of those horses weren't ours!

The neighbor's (one of the "kid"neighbors) stud horse had gotten loose and broke through our fence and got in with our horses. Let me rephrase that. The BOY horse got in with our GIRL horses. And of course, which one is he the most interested in? The horse that has the best blood line. The one that IF we were going to breed her, would have been with a high bred horse. Not a non-paper, old, nasty looking, scrubby thing from down the road. Well, it may be too late now. I know there are shots that you can give to horses so that they won't conceive, but our vet told us that it is pretty rough on the horse to take that shot. So folks, we will know in a few months whether we will have any baby horses running around. Can you get horse support? lol

After we worked with our neighbor getting their stud back into it's pasture, we came home and started in on our things that we had to do today. Hubby, to feed a friend's cattle herd and I started to do dishes.(yea.) A few hours later, I got a phone call from("kid") Neighbor.

Neighbor.."Aahhh, Small Farm Girl?"
Me.."Yes?"
Neighbor.." Aaahh, we just drove back to check on the horses to see how they were doing. And, uh, well, uh, our three dogs followed us over there to check on the horses. And, uh, your little puppies were out in your yard and our dogs, well, uh, our dogs kinda attacked the littlest one.?
Me.."What?!"
Neighbor..." I think she's okay. She ran off to your house. I figured that since she could run, she was okay. I just thought I would call and tell you so that you could check her to see if she is okay. I think she is."
Me..."Oooookaaayyyy."

At this time, I was not a happy neighbor. NOT AT ALL! I basically just hung up and went and check on the puppy. She was okay.

A little bit later, I got a phone call from "kid" neighbor to tell me that they were going back to feed their horses for the night and asked if I could hold my dog. You know, MY dog, on MY property. Once again, I am not a happy neighbor. So I hope this won't be an on going thing. But if it is, as much as I love animals, I'm not going to have 3 pit bulls (oh, I forgot to say these dogs are pit bulls. Not that there is anything wrong with pit bulls. I've owned some myself.) attacking my dogs on my own land. I'm not going to say anything more......

Saturday, March 3, 2012

What a night we had here in Ky! Tornadoes EVERYWHERE! Towns just down the road were hit, buildings were demolished, and debris was strewn all over. Our little farm escaped unharmed. We had some hail, but no damage. We were one of the lucky ones.

About Me

I grew up on 2 acres of land north of Columbus OH. Mom had a small garden,I had a horse,and Dad had his tractor, but we were far from what you would call homesteaders. It wasn't until I moved to Kentucky and married my husband did I start to have a small interest in growing a garden again. We have a few head of cattle, a small herd of horses, a flock of chickens and 2 dogs. And the garden, it keeps growing and growing each year. We decided we want to be more self-reliant. I don't know much about homesteading, but I'm willing to learn as I go. Oh, this could get good.